1. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of prevention or mitigation of fibrotic disorder, especially scar formation in wound healing.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is a problem that, although wounds in humans and other mammals usually heal reasonably quickly, unsightly scar tissue is often formed. Scarring and other fibrotic disorders are an important clinical problem therefore, often resulting in adverse effects on function and growth as well as in some cases an undesirable cosmetic appearance.
Adult wound healing is characterised by acute inflammation, contraction and collagen deposition, responses likely to have been optimised for rapid wound closure and minimising infection. Scarring can be problematic in nearly all organs and tissues of the body, e.g. eyes, central nervous system, muscle, joints etc. Similar processes may also result in other fibrotic disorders which are common in many areas of medicine and surgery. For example, abdominal surgery often leads to intraperitoneal fibrous adhesions and/or strictures, whilst fibrotic retinopathy, scarring following glaucoma surgery, proliferative vitreoretinopathy, keloids, skin diseases e.g. epidermolysis bullosa, scieroderma, systemic sclerosis, pulmonary fibrosis, glomula nephritis, scarring of the central nervous system following, for example a stroke or neurosurgery and hepatic cirrhosis are significant medical problems. A major medical objective is therefore the reduction and ideally, the prevention of scarring and other fibrotic disorders.
WO93/18777 (British Technology Group Ltd) describes the use of mannose-6-phosphate for the treatment of fibrotic disorders. It accelerates wound healing and also prevents or mitigates scar formation. It is suggested in this patent application that the mannose-6-phosphate (M6P) may be formulated in any conventional way with a variety of carriers including for example hyaluronic acid. The suggested concentration of M6P is 10-60 mM. Best results were reported at 20 mM. while 100 mM gave a poor result, worse than the control. It is a problem to improve the results obtained in the WO 93/18777 patent application.